


hurricane lamps for storms

by frostbitten_cheeks



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Domestic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 13:04:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4020844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostbitten_cheeks/pseuds/frostbitten_cheeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five snapshots from the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hurricane lamps for storms

**Author's Note:**

> (link to this fic [on tumblr](http://literaryphan.tumblr.com/post/120016534781/hurricane-lamps-for-storms))

  
In the retired sketchbook of Phil’s old drawing games, there’s a clumsily done picture of a big house with a mile-long fence and green grass everywhere. When it was drawn, Phil drank the last of his wineglass and said, “I don’t want horses,” and Dan set down his own glass and nodded mock-gravely, said, “Okay, even though the setting calls for it.”  

Phil says  _we could move to Sussex,_  sometimes. Dan thinks of this too often. He thinks of moving to the country and going for long walks and raising kids in the middle of nowhere. He thinks of the drawing.

Phil says they could move to Sussex and Dan answers,  _probably could_ , even though they won’t. The city hums with life and they’re part of it now, and Dan knows somewhere in his heart that they could never leave London, not willingly. But he thinks of Sussex too often, and slowly learns that the unachieved dreams are just as important.

 

 

-

 

 

Dan says,  _I’ll pack the lounge if you pack the kitchen_ , and Phil says,  _I’ll do the bath if you do the office_. The hallways between the stairs are more cardboard boxes than they are rugged carpets and there are numerous nail holes in the walls, the places pictures once were. At eight in the evening when Phil gives up on the seventh box of DVDs, Dan sits on his room’s doorstep and looks at the skeleton of what once was and feels the way there’s something sad about change, something sad about closing doors.

Phil says,  _it’s the start of something else, though_ , while he scrapes stickers off the radiator in his room. Martyn said moving is tiring and Dan’s grandmother warned that packing is difficult and Bryony noted that buying a house isn’t easy. No one told them the hardest part would be peeling Phil’s stickers off of every surface they can reach.

There are stickers on the hoover and on Dan’s piano and on the windows and on the light switches in every room. There are stickers on the shower curtain and stickers on the wardrobes and stickers on the fridge and stickers on the mirrors. Dan vows,  _you’re taking all of these off yourself_ , but at five in the morning they haven’t slept yet and they’re working a wet towel over the ones that aren’t coming off easy, and Phil smiles, says,  _they_ have _improved it_.

Dan doesn’t know what’s  _it_ , but Phil throws the wet towel on his neck and laughs when it wets Dan’s shirt and the wall and the carpet, and the thing is, he doesn’t think he cares.

 

 

-

 

 

They never move to Sussex, but Dan keeps the drawing folded neatly in a box in the attic, the memory of  _somedays_  and  _maybes_. It isn’t bitter and isn’t painful but is maybe a little nostalgic, and he thinks that it’s okay.

They buy a house in a different part of London with two storeys and a small garden and no paint. They paint the kitchen together and paint the bedroom with PJ and call Wirrow to paint the bathroom, and the small laundry room goes unpainted for too long but that’s okay. It’s okay.

Time passes. It stops being the  _new house_  and starts being  _home_. Phil’s on first name basis with the cashier in the shop around the corner, Dan starts staring at Google pictures of dogs for too long. Phil stirs the rice at dinnertime and offers, “Winston? Lucky?”, isn’t very serious, but there’s something about it, something that presses urgent warm fingertips to their chests, whispers  _possibilities_. Dan bookmarks the pictures and says, “Sparkly, definitely,” gets up to make salad.

 

 

-

 

 

Louise says  _buying a house is a stamp_ , and neither of them knows what she means until they do. For the first time since the year they met Phil’s mum says, “Dan’s coming for Christmas this year, yeah?”, and for some reason it doesn’t really sound like a question. Phil gives Dan the phone and Dan tells her that he has to ask his own mum and Phil’s mum says, “It’s fine, I already did.”

In Phil’s childhood kitchen, Dan shakes hands with relatives whose names he knows but who he’s never met. They smile bright and clap him on the shoulder and tell the confused others, _oh, this is Dan, he’s Phil’s_ , and it doesn’t mean a thing but at the same time, it does.

Phil attends Dan’s grandfather’s birthday and later on that year, packing a bag for Florida, Cornelia visits to help with the suitcases and sinks into their bed, says, “Honestly, I thought you’d come along years ago,” and there’s a chance that this is all they need.

“It’s like a stamp,” Louise told them back then, and they didn’t know what she’d meant. Now, Dan reckons that this stamp feels like something official, and Phil’s dad jokes about  _time to involve the government, eh?_  and Dan thinks that maybe he’s not wrong.

 

 

-

 

 

When they’re old enough for people to stop asking  _what do you want to do with your life_  and start asking  _what have you wanted and accomplished_ , someone asks Phil if they don’t regret never raising a family in the country.

Phil says, “Well, we’ve briefly considered Sussex once, but it just isn’t for us,” and it’s not exactly the truth. The truth is they’ve never seriously considered anything that isn’t staying in the city, and Dan knew this all along. The drawing in the attic was wine and throaty jokes and nothing else.

They never move to Sussex, but at some point Dan realizes this is okay. They adopt an orange mutt from the animal shelter and Phil doesn’t stop trying to grow tomatoes in the garden and they’re a tube ride away from the heart of the city at all times. In the summer they leave the windows in their bedroom open and Phil wakes up with thirty bug bites and Dan complains about the sirens and the heat. In the autumn they drink lattes in the Starbucks down the street and take pictures like they can still pass for twenty-something hipsters.

In the winter, the kids build snowmen in the garden next to Phil’s wilted tomato plants and Dan asks them,  _do you like the city?_ , and they always say yes. The dog leaves puddles on the floor and the kids spill hot chocolate on the sofa and Phil doesn’t give up his tomatoes yet again. Dan rolls his eyes and insists on having the black mug and remembers the drawing in the attic, knows that somewhere along the way, they truly got it right.  


End file.
